The first thing my boyfriend told me upon awakening this morning was this:

“I dreamed that… there was an Amoeba that sold shrimp. Like, instead of a music store, it was a place where you could go and sell your used shrimp and… they’d re-sell it to places like Iraq. Saddam was actually buying the shrimp, so I guess he was still alive. I got good money for it, too. Like, $112.40.”

Okay – there’s a lot to love about this dream, and needless to say I started my day with laughter, but I think my favorite element is not that Saddam was alive again and personally brokering shellfish trade with my favorite record store, or even that the concept of “used shrimp” is so utterly disgusting as to be hilarious, but the fact that, in his dream, my boyfriend received and remembered such a distinct trade quote: $112.40. Not bad for a bag of second-hand, decapod crustaceans, no?

This was just after we’d been woken by our iHome. For our alarm, I have a playlist filled with classical music pieces specifically selected as the least traumatic way to start the day. One of the best is this little gem…

If I had to name my top five favorite composers of all time, Claude Debussy would be one of them. If you thought the above piece was lovely, I cannot recommend his other chamber works enough. I mean, I love everything he wrote – but his chamber pieces are what really kill me dead. Come on in to Amoeba Music Hollywood sometime and I’ll hook you up. Your life will be so much the dreamier for it.

With President Obama's recent address at the University of Cairo, there has been a veritable sandstorm of media discussion about the Middle East, the Arab world and the Islamic world; three concepts lazily interchanged in the American mainstream media (including the supposedly smarter public radio). Despite some overlap, the indiscriminate use of the terms, both out of ignorance and deliberately, minimizes substantial heterogeneity and differences -- to the detriment of our understanding of reality, and as a result contributing to the undermining and hindering of attempts at peace in the region. While I did find the president's speech fairly nuanced, intelligent and inspirational, until substantial actions reflect those attractive words, they offer nothing more than hope.

"Neighbour to the Moon," the legendary Christian Lebanese singer, فيروز.

Today Arabs, Muslims and Middle Easterners remain some of the last people in the west for whom racism is not only extremely common but also widely accepted, even governmentally endorsed. Merely advocating equality and human rights for Arabs and Muslims is often met with charges of racism and embracing hatred, probably the only people likely to ellicit that response besides Germans. Given this reality, centuries of negative stereotypes and repeated military and political actions that reflect undeniable double standards, it's no wonder that many view the frequent proclamations that "Islam is a beautiful religion" and hands extended in friendship with widespread suspicion at best.

Not that anybody asked, but I thought I’d toss up a couple of my picks for the best photos of the year.

This image is of Mary McHugh at the grave of her fiancé, Sgt James J. Regan at Arlington National Cemetery. He was from Manhasset, New York. Sgt Regan was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

After a record drought year, this past fire season was one of the most destructive and costly in Southern California history, photographer Karen Tapia-Anderson took this photo of 12 firefighters trapped atop a ridge in Orange County after flames jumped the road sending the fire up the hillside, prompting the firefighters to deploy their fire shelters. "We just remained calm, everyone did," one firefighter said after he was checked out by paramedics. All 12 firefighters were treated at the scene, none of them wanted to be sent to the hospital.

A photo of the gruesome aftermath of Pakistan’s oppositional leader Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, the suicide attack left more then 20 people dead.

Check out this really funny (but sadly true) Mad TV skit about the US foreign policy and the ongoing war. in it, Michael McDonald plays Apple founder Steve Jobs and introduces Apple's latest program -- the iRack! Take a few minutes and watch this brilliant satire that simultaneously pokes fun at Jobs and the Bush administration -- but mainly the latter.

The new compilation WAR II (the turd hunt continues...) is the sequel to the 2003 anti-war compilation WAR: If It Feels Good Do It. It is just being released and will be available exclusively at Amoeba Music's three locations (Hollywood, Berkeley, and San Francisco) and online through Hip Hop Slam's online shop. It features Public Enemy, Steinski, Braintax, Backyard Bangers, DJ ALF, OkiZoo, the DJs of Mass Destruction, and others.

Like the first WAR compilation, this hip-hop collection is also produced by the DJs of Mass Destruction, featuring this blogger along with DJ Pone, Shing02, DJ ALF, DnZ, & Dawgisht -- all of whom will be performing live on KFJC on Saturday afternoon, June 23rd on DJ Trinity's show on 89.7FM (noon - 3PM) with an estimated performance time of 1PM - 2:15PM (West Coast time).

KFJC in Los Altos Hills is a legendary Bay Area college radio station that for years has been broadcasting over the Bay Area (its signal is pretty good) with quality radio -- including lots of live studio performances. This will be the second time the DJs of Mass Destruction perform on DJ Trinity's show. In fact, we turned part of the last KFJC performance (2003 release party for WAR: If it feels good do it) into a music video featuring Bush/War footage mixed with the KFJC performance. The video originally appeared on the enhanced CD section of the 2CD Amoeba Music Compilation Vol. V set. This video, which was produced by Hip Hop Slam's Nausea Girl, can be viewed below. The video at top of this page, produced by ALF, was made for the new WAR II: the turd hunt continues. The audio track for the video is the opening track on the 14-track new WAR II CD.